Thoughts on the big three civilizations of the Pre-Columbian era: the Incas, the Mayans, and the Aztecs...

Aztecs used hand, heart and arrow symbols to represent fractional distances when calculating areas of land, scientists have discovered. The researchers pored over Aztec agricultural manuscripts trying to understand how the indigenous people arrived at area calculations. Only when they factored in the pictorial glyphs did the figures make sense.
Each symbol stood for a distance that was less than the standard distance unit, called a land rod.
"These arrow, heart, and hands were similar to what we would now call fractions," del Carmen Jorge y Jorge said. "We call them units of measure smaller than the length unit. Suppose if you have inches. An inch isn’t just part of a foot, but a measure unit itself. Think of these heart, hand, and arrow as individual units."

"The Spanish conqueror who was in charge of the town was asking a lot of tribute," del Carmen Jorge y Jorge said. "The Indians wanted to prove in Spanish court that they were not able to pay the tribute the Spanish were asking."

"These are the only prehispanic documents that contain perimeter and area data, as far as I know," del Carmen Jorge y Jorge said. "Most of the documents from this time were lost."

What about this book:

Aztec Philosophy: Understanding a World in Motion

Anyone read it?

invented penicilin thous yrs ago

Aztecs invented the wheel but never used it. It was a mere childrens toy for them.

Damn, this is cool as fuck. Makes me wonder what could've happened if only they'd had more time. From an intellectual and sociological point of view, the Aztecs were comparable to the Greek city-states.

Michael D. Coe is one of the leading academics re Mesoamerican civs, especially the Maya. He's written a number of works that have been successful but still scholarly.

Pretty sure that's incas friend.

The andeans and specially the Incas were arguably more advanced and powerful than the mesoamericans in a lot of things. So why the fuck did they never invent fucking writing? I know they used some kind of knots "instead" but that just cannot compete with actual writing.

Probably because they were so short-lived.

How come the folks in Central and South America were so much more advanced and "civilized" than their counterparts in North America?

annotated bibliography
art of the aztec empire
pastebin.com/m96zMip0
contains more types of topics/books than the title suggests

There were decent civilizations in the North, Cahokia, The Iroqouis, Pueblo and Proto-Pueblo, BC Indians were pretty civilized, And you fucking retard Mexico is North America

Interesting question
If I were to take a shot in the dark I would assume it was due to superior Agricultural techniques and better leadership or maybe that their religions offered more Unity than their northern frens

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They had nice poetry and philosophy too.

youtube.com/watch?v=6uaIeY-FGpI
youtube.com/watch?v=u-Uu8-LngEI
I have the book. I can upload to mega if you want.

Some have suggested they had a writing system in their quipus and also in the sqaures you typically see in textiles. I forget the name of them.

YES please.

It's a good one.

mega.nz/#!rp502baL!

t7L8wKHg9jACC_9Ro2wudwm_v1-BofXgsAcRCBtZ60o

The incan empire was just the last and greatest of a series of empires and states forming the andean civilization that wasn't, at all, short-lived.

But that's lame and primitive, it can't substitute actual writing.

The Incas only used the wheel for toys because they lived in a fucking mountain range

Why didn't they pave roads so they could use wheels?

The Aztecs weren't alone. They were just one (albeit the most successful one) of the Nahuatl Speaking Peoples who made city states.

I would include the Tarascans among the big 3. Just not much survived on them but their power was on par with the Aztecs.

but they did

500 Nations (Miniseries hosted by Kevin Costner) has a pretty good episode on the Aztecs
youtube.com/watch?v=vkI2J0FcoOc

I'd also add the mississipi mound builders, although we don't know too much about them

Apparentely, in the Amazon archeologists found they built flat wide highways connecting the clusters of big hamlets with others. If they had any beasts of burden there, these would be perfect.

Agreed

There's a nice documentary series by the BBC and hosted by the same guy about some mesoamerican and andean civilizations.

I've found them posted on Youtube or dailymotion.

South America: youtube.com/watch?v=GvGf0JIat0s
Episode 1: Covers the chachapoya culture
Episode 2: Covers the tiwanaku ruins
Episode 3: Covers the Chibcha culture
Episode 4: Covers the Chimu Kingdom

The mesoamerica documentary series I couldn't find on Youtube, but it's on dailymotion:
Ep. 1: The Olmecs
Ep. 2: The Taino
Ep. 3: Costa Rica
Ep. 4: Teotihuacan

There's also a pretty nice 2 part, 2 hours long in total, Inca documentary hosted by the same host as the previous documentary series and made by the BBC that can be found on either youtube or dailymotion.
It's called: "The Inca - Masters of the Clouds"

There's also a nice documentary on the Peruvian Caral ruins/civilization by the BBC as well:
youtube.com/watch?v=qDmm-MymkSk
The documentary is split into 5 parts on youtube.

I think these are some of the documentaries I've seen that are pretty good and worth mentioning. I might mention some more if anyone is interested.

There is also a book on the Incas that I found a little too concise but still pretty good called:
"The Incas: New Perpectives" by Gordon McEwan.
You can probably find this one easily.

1491 is a genuinely comprehensive book. A little biased but what book isn't.

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I gotta ask. How the fuck did they build these empires without any writing?
I'm not talking about the day to day bureaucracy, i'm talking about collecting and passing on knowledge in such an efficient way that they could build those cities.

Protowriting, oral history and perhaps even real writing (Maya definitely had it, there are some new discoveries, which I can't currently link you to but I will try to find them, which seem to show that Aztecs had true writing too)

Thank you fa m

Thanks user.

whoever took this picture should get some sort of award

There's nothing to explain, you're coming from tre prejudice of writing being needed for a great empire. The inca didn't need writing to become a great civilization. This, instead of being confusing, should shows us writing isn't essential for a civilization.
Appropiate observations: 1) Most early writing is administrative in nature. 2) The quipu you called lame and primitive was often used to keep track of numerical data for administrative pourposes